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Monday, December 20, 2010

Session XXVII: When The Dead Are Hungry For Souls

Quote of the Game:"I'm wearing Plate Mail so I hope I don't get a boner."

Descending deeper beneath the Tower of Zenopus than ever before, our party of intrepid adventurers worked their way down a steep flight of dusty, cobweb filled stairs. Along the way, Gnarly discovered a red gem buried in the thick dust.

Finally coming to the bottom of the they followed a passage to a dead end where only a small portly statue stood upon a pedestal. The statue had a human body but it's head was that of an amphibious creature. It had a single red gem for an eye. Gnarly placed the red gem that he found into the other eye socket and a hidden door opened into a north-west passage.

Heading south they found a long narrow chamber with alcoves along the walls. As they began to search the room from the alcoves came a pair of mummies! Failing to fall back from the Televon's symbol of Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, the mummies engaged the party.

Before the battle was over, two additional mummies appeared out of the darkness. And as the mummies were slain or a burning ruin, Wolfheir and Gnarly ended up with the dreaded mummy-rot!

Exploring the chamber, it was found that one of the pillars holding up the low ceiling had a hidden compartment inside of which was a spear inlaid with decretive heads of wolves. Wolfheir proudly carried the spear and decided to attack from the second ranks as his wounds from the mummy were grievous.

Retracing their steps, they followed another passage south into an odd hall bathed in a slight green glow. The glow was coming from a large pool of green mist in the center of the room. The four corners of this pool had 4 stone statues of domesticated cats with emerald gems for eyes. All along the wall were relief carvings of cats of various breeds and sizes facing the pool.

Exploring the pool of mist, it was decided to tie someone to a rope and lower them down. There wasn't a volunteer so it was decided to tie their Black Hand captive to the rope and lower him down. This captive was just awakening from his horrors from the previous explorations when he found himself tied to a rope and being plunged into the mist. He screamed in protest as he was lowered down to at least 50 feet when his screams had stopped. Tibag and Wolf pulled him back up and found that he had fainted once again.

Wary of the mist, the party decided to play it safe and just steal the emerald eyes from the cat statues and continue out a side passage from the room.

Exploring further they came across tomb where black shapes were lifting off the lids of coffins. Tibag fired an arrow into one of their backs. The four hungry wights turned and charged the party. Yielding not to Morpheus' symbol, the four soul sucking fiends attacked the party. Gnarly sent his mushrooms out to attack but one fell to the touch of the wight.

Maudlin, in battle with a fiend felt the odds were against her survival after she had sacrificed her shield to save her soul and stepped back to retreat. In doing so, Adara the ranger tripped upon the retreating dwarf and fell prone before two of these vile beasts! The life was drained out of her!

Finally defeating the wights, the rest of the party explored the tomb and discovered it to be the resting place of dwarven lords. The tomb was looted and the party thought it best to retreat back to the surface and lick their wounds.

This was our last session of the year as the holidays usually become too busy for everyone to meet. It was a good session to end on, a lot of excitement and fun to end the year. We planning on getting together sometime over the holiday for some additional gaming (there's a large list of games that we've all been waiting to try). Our Swords & Wizardry sessions will return in early January.

2 comments:

This was a CRAZY adventure! Curses upon the level draining fiends! and to the dread mummies and their diseases! It seems we are doomed to spend all our gold on curative spells and the like!Poor Adara! She didnt stand a chance, she really should have worn better armor! I think a large purchase of silver weapons is in our future.

We did indeed get together for Ham Sandwiches and the D&D Ravenloft board game. We, being hardcore oldschooler's made it way harder on ourselves then we needed to by interpreting the rules that activated Every monster Every villain phase. Some Errata is heavily in need for the game, as it reads a party could get wiped in two turns from traps! yuck! The terminology "within one tile" is poorly defined and over used, but it was a great time and we made it thru the beginning scenario. Might have to bust out Descent to see how it compares.